It's the time of year again for the Mountains and Plains Independent Bookseller's Association annual trade show. Last year's was terrible. It was out by the airport, a place easy for NO ONE to get to. There weren't any authors I wanted to see speak, and there were hardly any free copies of books for me to take. It was majorly disappointing. But this year it looked like they had gotten things back on track, so I decided to be excited again. And I'm really really glad I attended the children's authors lunch this time because I got to see a phenomenal lecture from Laurie Halse Anderson.
First, some background. About 6 months ago, I decided to finally get around to reading a book that I'd heard a lot about, Anderson's "Speak." If you're into young adult literature at all, you've heard of this book. It's an amazing novel about a young girl who struggles with high school after being sexually assaulted. It's amazing because it's realistic. A girl is raped, and it changes her life. And it's not magically changed back because she falls in love or because she sees a therapist or because the attacker is beaten up by the hero in the end. Usually, one or some combination of those endings is what is used to "fix" the character that has been assaulted, which in my opinion are usually described as easy solutions to an incredibly complex and personal problem. None of them take time, and none of them really show how the rest of the life of a survivor is altered because of the abuse.
Partly because of this realistic portrayal, and partly because other people are assholes, this books often appears on banned book lists. Because despite the fact that one in four American women are likely to become victims of sexual assault in their lifetime, and abuse rates of children in this country are staggeringly high, we shouldn't talk about the sexual abuse of children because it's "not suitable for children."
Needless to say, now I have several other books by Ms. Anderson on my shelf, eagerly awaiting me to find time to read them.
The lecture today, it turned out, was on the censorship that her books have received. Ms. Anderson recently wrote a blog on her own website, madwomanintheforest.com, talking about a current case of an Indiana school banning "Speak" not only from the curriculum but also from the library, in part, because one asshole claimed it was 'pornographic' in nature. The dude's name is Wesley Scroggins, which is such a "properly Dickensian villain name" as Ms Anderson so wonderfully put it today, and he is one of the 'America is really secretly a theocracy and pictures of boobies make the baby Jesus cry' people that I wish I could condemn to live in a dark cave with no one to listen to them ever again. I actually read about this on Jezebel.com, which is one of several places that reported this story in the attempt to spread the word about what contemptible bullshit is going on in the guise of some vague moralistic crusade. Twitter started a hash tag, #SpeakLoudly, and Ms. Anderson encouraged people to write about their own "Speak" experiences. And after seeing her speak today, I decided to join in.
I'm the daughter of a childhood sexual assault victim. I'm the sister of a childhood sexual assault victim. I'm the aunt of a childhood sexual assault victim. And I'm a friend of childhood sexual assault victims. To ban a book from a classroom, and therefore from the hands of "children", or in this specific case, of adolescents, because you find the actions of the antagonist reprehensible does not make sense to me. Books have always been a way for me to relate to outside experiences, a way for me to understand the world outside of what I have been able to directly participate in. Young adult and children books about sexual abuse are one way to educate children about the possibility that someone they know has had to endure some form it. They are also a way to allow those with an intimate knowledge of such monstrous acts to understand their own situations better, to feel less alone. To not be that thing that people are afraid to talk about because it's "not suitable for children."
I think we can all agree that sexual abuse is not suitable for anyone. I think less of us will agree that it is "pornographic in nature." and I hope that most of us will agree that reading about it isn't going to make it worse.
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